It comes to no surprise when we hear about a Firefox Mobile app in development for various smartphones. Mozilla managed to convert an outstanding number of IE users over to their platform and get close to an average increase of 10 million users a day lately.

Firefox Mobile (currently codenamed Fennec) will share much of the desktop's engine and render both complex HTML and JavaScript. Mozilla VP Jay Sullivan made the bold claim that Firefox Mobile will "put an end to app stores like the iPhone's App Store or BlackBerry App World." These guys are either extremely over confident, or have no idea how well the App Store is doing right now. But nonetheless, as we learn the logic of web apps, it would make more sense for companies to create a singe web app that works just as well for Firefox Mobile, so it works across various phone platforms guaranteed.

Many of the existing stores have draconian or inconsistent guidelines, or aren't worth the cost of producing a separate version to reach a smaller user base, Sullivan argues...

"We look at the problems it creates for small innovators," he said. "You have to create an iPhone app, an Android app, a Windows Mobile app..."

"As developers get more frustrated with quality assurance, the amount of handsets they have to buy, whether their security updates will get past the iPhone approval process... I think they'll move to the web," he explains.

Mozilla will be releasing the first version of Firefox Mobile on the Nokia's N900 handset, and is being developed for virtually every smartphone platform that encourages a more unrestricted app environment, including Android, Nokia's Maemo, Symbian and Windows Mobile but will of course be entirely unavailable on the iPhone, as we are all well aware of Apple's submission rules that refuse to accept most code interpreters and 3rd web browsers.

In the interim period, apps will be very successful. Over time, the web will win because it always does

All of this being said, I don't see how it would have any immediate affect on the AppStore market, as these platforms don't just grow overnight. And they've got a lot to compete with for apple. However this does extend a new market to platforms that are more universal. Hopefully Apple get's with it and starts to allow a more open platform like we've slowly seen lately.

However such features as syncing browsers with your phone and PC is genius, and starts to take us down a road that just might overpower such markets as the Apple AppStore.

"We will sync browser tabs in real time," Sullivan adds. "If you have five, 10, 20 tabs open on your PC and something happens and you have to leave, you can pick up where you left off on your phone."

Firefox Mobile will also support browser add-ons. "Some are existing add-ons for the PC, some are brand new," Sullivan claims.